Lunch at the Butcher

Its apparently quite common for Hungarians to go have lunch direct from a butcher shop. In addition to the various raw meats that you would find at a regular butcher, some have hot food that they serve for lunch. Anything from sausages to chicken wings and liver to pork meatballs to kebabs. The only thing missing? Veggies.

I’ve been twice, and both times it was fairly busy. The second time I was there, the line was going out the door! Everything I’ve tried was extremely tasty (and probably incredibly unhealthy)!

A wide range of options to choose from: pork liver sausage in the back, roast chicken to the left, kebabs in the front

Click through to see more photos from my visit!

Chicken liver wrapped with bacon in the front, regular sausages to the right and another type of sausage in the back (I forgot)

The counter is run by a friendly lady that has some knowledge of English. She is always helpful in answering our questions about what is what kind of meat. She makes triple sure we know what we’re eating so there are no surprises!

And for my second visit, I shared a pork meatball, a piece of chicken liver wrapped in bacon and half a sausage. We ordered some mustard and bread to eat with it.

I was pleasantly surprised by the chicken liver wrapped in bacon. Normally I avoid liver like the plague, but Hungarians love the stuff. They put it in everything! Its almost a rite of passage to accidently order chicken liver for all expats. I know I’ve done it! (It was terrible – got it inside a pastry, but now I know the word for liver so that won’t be happening again!) The bacon around it really cuts the richness of the liver and it wasn’t too gamey at all. I don’t think I’ll be ordering it again though, but always worth trying.

The pork meatball was average. They put some spices in it that I didn’t quite like and the texture was very crumbly. Almost like a meatloaf I guess, but it was still nice and moist. And the sausage was delicious. Pretty difficult to screw up a sausage here I would think. Yummo!